Many businesses and organizations rely on computer networks to provide access to critical data and/or critical services. However, computer networks can encounter problems, such as power outages, system failures, fires and/or other disasters, which can inhibit or completely interrupt their ability to provide access to critical data and services. The inhibition, or complete interruption, of access to critical data and services is known as downtime and may result in expensive productivity losses for a business or organization. As a result, many business and organizations seek to reduce or eliminate downtime by operating both a primary network (“PN”) and a disaster recovery network (“DRN”) in a live production environment. A live production environment is the collection of network devices and services they provide that a business or organization relies upon for day-to-day operations and backup capabilities. A DRN is a secondary network that provides backup access to critical data and/or critical services (collectively known as disaster recovery capabilities) in the event the primary network is inhibited or completely prevented from providing access to critical data and/or critical services due to a power outage, flood, system failure and/or other disaster. DRNs are expensive to operate and maintain. Thus, DRNs must be highly reliable in their ability to provide disaster recovery capabilities in order to be cost-effective. Accordingly, many business and organizations test the ability of their DRNs to provide disaster recovery capabilities (known as a DRN's reliability).
Traditionally, the reliability of a DRN operating in a live production environment is tested by moving the DRN from the live production environment to an isolated test network. Moving a DRN from a live production environment to an isolated network is an expensive procedure that typically requires several weeks of preparation in which the physical wiring and network configurations of hundreds of network devices are altered. Further, integrating a DRN that has been moved to an isolated test network back into a live production environment often requires additional weeks to reinstate the previous physical wiring and network configurations of the altered network devices. Further still, a DRN cannot provide disaster recovery capabilities while in an isolated network. Thus, testing the reliability of a DRN by moving it to an isolated network significantly increases the risk of incurring an extended period of downtime in the event a disaster occurs.
Other methods of testing the reliability of a DRN seek to reduce the risk of downtime by replicating the backup network in hardware and/or software. However, both of these approaches are expensive as they require the use of additional computing resources.
Moreover, DRNs that have been moved to an isolated network or replicated in hardware and/or software have different configuration settings during the reliability test than in a live production environment. Thus, the results of a reliability test of a DRN using the above-mentioned methods serve only as an approximation of the reliability of that particular DRN while operating in a live production environment.